Actors who appeared in the most Best Picture Oscar nominees
by demented_peruvian | created - 16 Feb 2016 | updated - 1 month ago | PublicThere's plenty of lists, including a Wikipedia article, on the actors who have appeared in the most Best Picture winners. But I have failed to find any describing the above. These actors have appeared in some capacity in movies who were nominated for Best Picture. I realize that the actors between 1944 and 2008 had it harder, with 5 movies rather than 8-10. I also realize that quite a few screen legends, especially actresses, top out at 3 Best Picture nominees. However, I capped it at 4 as the list for 3 was too long. [Update: some corrections made based on comments below, as long as I was able to verify it. Thank you for your input.]
1. Robert De Niro
Actor | Cape Fear
One of the greatest actors of all time, Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in Manhattan, New York City, to artists Virginia (Admiral) and Robert De Niro Sr. His paternal grandfather was of Italian descent, and his other ancestry is Irish, English, Dutch, German, and French. He was trained ...
Eleven: The Godfather Part II, Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Raging Bull, The Mission, Awakenings, Goodfellas, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, Joker, The Irishman
2. Jack Nicholson
Actor | Chinatown
Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, director and screenwriter, is a three-time Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received an Oscar nomination in every decade from the '60s through ...
Ten: Five Easy Pieces, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Chinatown, Reds, Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, Prizzi's Honor, A Few Good Men, As Good as It Gets, The Departed.
3. Tom Hanks
Producer | Cast Away
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His mother's family, originally surnamed "Fraga", was entirely Portuguese, while his father was of mostly English ancestry. Tom grew up in what he has ...
Nine: Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile, Toy Story 3, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Captain Phillips, Bridge of Spies, The Post.
4. Leonardo DiCaprio
Actor | Inception
Few actors in the world have had a career quite as diverse as Leonardo DiCaprio's. DiCaprio has gone from relatively humble beginnings, as a supporting cast member of the sitcom Growing Pains (1985) and low budget horror movies, such as Critters 3 (1991), to a major teenage heartthrob in the 1990s,...
Nine: Titanic, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Inception, Django Unchained, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Revenant, Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.
5. Gregory Peck
Actor | To Kill a Mockingbird
Eldred Gregory Peck was born on April 5, 1916 in La Jolla, California, to Bernice Mae (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist and druggist in San Diego. He had Irish (from his paternal grandmother), English, and some German, ancestry. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child...
Eight: Spellbound, The Yearling, Gentleman's Agreement, Twelve O'Clock High, Roman Holiday, How the West Was Won, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Guns of Navarone
6. Harrison Ford
Actor | Raiders of the Lost Ark
Harrison Ford was born on July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, to Dorothy (Nidelman), a radio actress, and Christopher Ford (born John William Ford), an actor turned advertising executive. His father was of Irish and German ancestry, while his maternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Minsk, ...
Eight: American Graffiti, The Conversation, Star Wars, Apocalypse Now, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Witness, Working Girl, The Fugitive
7. Elizabeth Taylor
Actress | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was considered one of the last, if not the last, major star to have come out of the old Hollywood studio system. She was known internationally for her beauty, especially for her violet eyes, with which she captured audiences early in her youth and kept the world hooked ...
Six, formally: Giant, A Place in the Sun, Ivanhoe, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cleopatra, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And uncredited as an extra in Quo Vaids and Anne of The Thousand Days, for a total of eight.
8. Edwin Maxwell
Actor | Scarface
Edwin Maxwell was born on February 9, 1886 in Dublin, Ireland. He was an actor, known for Scarface (1932), The Shop Around the Corner (1940) and His Girl Friday (1940). He was married to Betty Alden. He died on August 13, 1948 in Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA.
Eight: All Quiet on the Western Front, A Star is Born, Grand Hotel, The Great Ziegfeld, Cleopatra, You Can't Take It With You, Mr Deeds Goes to Town , Ninotchka. Small roles and extra.
9. Brad Pitt
Actor | Fight Club
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt was born on December 18, 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma and raised in Springfield, Missouri to Jane Etta Pitt (née Hillhouse), a school counselor & William Alvin "Bill" Pitt, a truck company manager. At Kickapoo High School, Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student ...
Eight: Babel, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Inglorious Basterds, Moneyball, The Tree of Life, 12 Years a Slave, The Big Short, Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.
10. Franklyn Farnum
Actor | Sunset Blvd.
Boston-born Franklyn Farnum was on the vaudeville stage at the age of 12 and was featured in a number of theatre and musical productions by the time he entered silent films near the age of 40. He appeared to be at his most comfortable in the saddle, his career dominated mostly by westerns. Some of ...
Eight, all as an uncredited extra: The Life of Emile Zola, Going My Way, The Lost Weekend, Gentleman's Agreement, All About Eve AND Sunset Blvd, The Greatest Show on Earth, Around the World in 80 Days.
11. Al Pacino
Actor | Serpico
Alfredo James "Al" 'Pacino established himself as a film actor during one of cinema's most vibrant decades, the 1970s, and has become an enduring and iconic figure in the world of American movies.
He was born April 25, 1940 in Manhattan, New York City, to Italian-American parents, Rose (nee Gerardi)...
Eight: The Godfather trilogy, Dog Day Afternoon, Scent of a Woman, The Insider, Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood, The Irishman.
12. Dustin Hoffman
Actor | Tootsie
Dustin Lee Hoffman was born in Los Angeles, California, to Lillian (Gold) and Harry Hoffman, who was a furniture salesman and prop supervisor for Columbia Pictures. He was raised in a Jewish family (from Ukraine, Russia-Poland, and Romania). Hoffman graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955, ...
Seven: The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Lenny, Kramer vs Kramer, Tootsie, Rain Man, Finding Neverland.
13. Robert Duvall
Actor | The Apostle
Veteran actor and director Robert Selden Duvall was born on January 5, 1931, in San Diego, CA, to Mildred Virginia (Hart), an amateur actress, and William Howard Duvall, a career military officer who later became an admiral. Duvall majored in drama at Principia College (Elsah, IL), then served a ...
Seven: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, The Conversation, Network, Apocalypse Now, Tender Mercies.
14. Cate Blanchett
Actress | Carol
Cate Blanchett was born on May 14, 1969 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, to June (Gamble), an Australian teacher and property developer, and Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., an American advertising executive, originally from Texas. She has an older brother and a younger sister. When she was ten ...
Seven: Elizabeth, Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Aviator, Babel, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
15. William Holden
Actor | Stalag 17
Billy Wilder proclaimed William Holden to be "the ideal motion picture actor". For almost four decades, the handsome, affable 'Golden Holden' was among Hollywood's most durable and engaging stars. He was born William Franklin Beedle Jr., one of three sons to a high school English teacher, Mary ...
Seven: Sunset Blvd., The Country Girl, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, Picnic, The River Kwai, The Towering Inferno, Network.
16. Marlon Brando
Actor | Apocalypse Now
Marlon Brando is widely considered the greatest movie actor of all time, rivaled only by the more theatrically oriented Laurence Olivier in terms of esteem. Unlike Olivier, who preferred the stage to the screen, Brando concentrated his talents on movies after bidding the Broadway stage adieu in ...
Seven: A Streetcar Named Desire, Julius Caesar, On the Waterfront, Mutiny on the Bounty, Sayonara, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now.
17. Tom Wilkinson
Actor | Michael Clayton
Popular British character actor Tom Wilkinson was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, and came from a long line of urban farmers. He was the son of Marjorie (Percival) and Thomas Wilkinson. Economic hardships forced his family to move to Canada for a few years when Wilkinson was a child; then, ...
Seven: In the Name of the Father, Sense and Sensibility, The Full Monty, Shakespeare in Love, In the Bedroom, Michael Clayton, Selma
18. Wallis Clark
Actor | Mutiny on the Bounty
Wallis Clark was born on March 2, 1882 in Essex, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Penny Serenade (1941) and Murder by Invitation (1941). He was married to Kate Byron. He died on February 14, 1961 in North Hollywood, California, USA.
Seven: It Happened One Night, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Great Ziegfeld, You Can't Take It With You, Gone with the Wind - all winners, and he's uncredited or an extra in most. Also: I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Mildred Pierce.
19. Meryl Streep
Actress | Out of Africa
Considered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 21 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William ...
Seven: Julia, The Deer Hunter, Kramer vs Kramer, Out of Africa, The Hours, The Post, Little Women.
20. Daniel Day-Lewis
Actor | There Will Be Blood
Born in London, England, Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is the second child of Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate of the U.K., and his second wife, actress Jill Balcon. His maternal grandfather was Sir Michael Balcon, an important figure in the history of British cinema and head of the famous Ealing ...
Seven: Gandhi, My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, Gangs of New York, There Will Be Blood, Lincoln, Phantom Thread
21. Michael Stuhlbarg
Actor | A Serious Man
Michael Stewart Stuhlbarg was born in Long Beach, California. He attended UCLA, and then The Juilliard School in New York City, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. His other studies included time at the Vilnius Conservatory in Lithuania, the British American Drama Academy at Baliol and...
Seven: A Serious Man, Hugo, Lincoln, Arrival, Call Me By Your Name, The Shape of Water, The Post.
22. George Clooney
Actor | The Ides of March
George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney ...
Six: The Thin Red Line, Good Night,and Good Luck, Michael Clayton, Up in the Air, The Descendants, Gravity
23. Alec Guinness
Actor | Star Wars
Alec Guinness was an English actor. He is known for his six collaborations with David Lean: Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946), Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948), Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor), Prince Faisal in Lawrence...
Six: Great Expectations, The Bridge On the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, Star Wars, A Passage to India
24. James Stewart
Actor | Vertigo
James Maitland Stewart was born on May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, to Elizabeth Ruth (Johnson) and Alexander Maitland Stewart, who owned a hardware store. He was of Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and some English descent. Stewart was educated at a local prep school, Mercersburg Academy, where he ...
Six: You Can't Take it With You, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story, It's a Wonderful Life, The Greatest Show on Earth, Anatomy of a Murder
25. Ralph Fiennes
Actor | The Constant Gardener
Actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes was born on December 22, 1962 in Suffolk, England, to Jennifer Anne Mary Alleyne (Lash), a novelist, and Mark Fiennes, a photographer. He is the eldest of six children. Four of his siblings are also in the arts: Martha Fiennes, a director; Magnus ...
Six: Schindler's List, Quiz Show, The English Patient, The Hurt Locker, The Reader, The Grand Budapest Hotel.
26. Gene Hackman
Actor | The French Connection
Eugene Allen Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Anna Lyda Elizabeth (Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman, who operated a newspaper printing press. He is of Pennsylvania Dutch (German), English, and Scottish ancestry, partly by way of Canada, where his mother was born. After ...
Six: Bonnie and Clyde, The French Connection, The Conversation, Reds, Mississippi Burning, Unforgiven
27. Gary Cooper
Actor | High Noon
Born to Alice Cooper and Charles Cooper. Gary attended school at Dunstable school England, Helena Montana and Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa (then called Iowa College). His first stage experience was during high school and college. Afterwards, he worked as an extra for one year before getting a ...
Six: Sergeant York, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, For Whom the Bells Tolls, The Pride of the Yankees, High Noon, Friendly Persuasion
28. Burt Lancaster
Actor | From Here to Eternity
Burt Lancaster, one of five children, was born in Manhattan, to Elizabeth (Roberts) and James Henry Lancaster, a postal worker. All his grandparents were immigrants from the north of Ireland. He was a tough street kid who took an early interest in gymnastics. He joined the circus as an acrobat and ...
Six: From Here to Eternity, Elmer Gantry, Judgment at Nuremberg, Airport, Atlantic City, Field of Dreams,
29. Ed Harris
Actor | Appaloosa
By transforming into his characters and pulling the audience in, Ed Harris has earned a reputation as one of the most talented actors of our time.
Ed Harris was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, to Margaret (Sholl), a travel agent, and Robert Lee Harris, a bookstore worker who also sang professionally. ...
Six: The Right Stuff, Places in the Heart, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, The Hours, Gravity.
30. Russell Crowe
Actor | Les Misérables
Russell Ira Crowe was born in Wellington, New Zealand, to Jocelyn Yvonne (Wemyss) and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom catered movie sets. His maternal grandfather, Stanley Wemyss, was a cinematographer. Crowe's recent ancestry includes Welsh (where his paternal grandfather was born, in Wrexham),...
Six: LA Confidential, The Insider, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Les Miserables,
31. J.K. Simmons
Actor | Whiplash
J.K. Simmons is an American actor.
He was born Jonathan Kimble Simmons in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, to Patricia (Kimble), an administrator, and Donald William Simmons, a music teacher. He attended the Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; University of Montana, Missoula, MT (BA in Music).
He had ...
Six: The Cider House Rules, Juno, Up in the Air, Whiplash, La La Land, and uncredited voice work in True Grit.
32. Paul Newman
Actor | The Hustler
Screen legend, superstar, and the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history, Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman (died 1950) and Theresa Fetsko (died 1982). His elder brother was Arthur S. Newman Jr., named for ...
Five: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Verdict
33. Anthony Hopkins
Actor | The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English descent. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, ...
Five: The Lion in Winter, The Elephant Man, Silence of the Lambs, Howards End, The Remains of the Day
34. Diane Keaton
Actress | Annie Hall
Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Deanne (Keaton), an amateur photographer, and John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, a civil engineer and real estate broker. She studied Drama at Santa Ana College, before dropping out in favor of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New ...
Five: The Godfather trilogy, Annie Hall, Reds
35. Geoffrey Rush
Actor | The King's Speech
Geoffrey Roy Rush was born on July 6, 1951, in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, to Merle (Bischof), a department store sales assistant, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the Royal Australian Air Force. His mother was of German descent and his father had English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. ...
Five: Shine, Elizabeth, Shakespeare in Love, Munich, The King's Speech.
36. Richard Burton
Actor | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Probably best-remembered for his turbulent personal life with Elizabeth Taylor (whom he married twice), Richard Burton was nonetheless also regarded as an often brilliant British actor of the post-WWII period.
Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in 1925 into a Welsh (Cymraeg)-speaking family in ...
Five: The Robe, Cleopatra, Becket, Anne of the Thousand Days, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?
37. John C. Reilly
Actor | Chicago
Character actor, dramatic leading man, or hilarious comic foil? With an astonishing range of roles already under his belt, John C. Reilly has played an eclectic host of rich characters to great effect over the years, from seedy ne'er-do-wells, to lovable, good-natured schlepps.
The fifth of six ...
Five: The Thin Red Line, Chicago, The Hours, Gangs of New York, The Aviator.
38. Willem Dafoe
Actor | Spider-Man
Having made over one hundred films in his legendary career, Willem Dafoe is internationally respected for bringing versatility, boldness, and daring to some of the most iconic films of our time. His artistic curiosity in exploring the human condition leads him to projects all over the world, large ...
Five: Platoon, Mississippi Burning, Born on the Fourth of July, The English Patient, The Grand Budapest Hotel.
39. Michael Peña
Actor | American Hustle
Michael Peña was born and raised in Chicago, to Nicolasa, a social worker, and Eleuterio Peña, who worked at a button factory. His parents were originally from Mexico. After graduating from high school, he went to an open casting call for the Peter Bogdanovich feature To Sir, with Love II (1996), ...
Five: Million Dollar Baby, Crash, Babel, American Hustle, The Martian.
40. James Cromwell
Actor | L.A. Confidential
Born in Los Angeles but raised in Manhattan and educated at Middlebury College and Carnegie-Mellon University, James Cromwell is the son of film director John Cromwell and actress Kay Johnson. He studied acting at Carnegie-Mellon, and went into the theatre (like his parents) doing everything from ...
Five: Babe, LA Confidential, The Green Mile, The Queen, The Artist.
41. John Cazale
Actor | Dog Day Afternoon
John Cazale was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to an Irish-American mother, Cecilia (Holland), and an Italian-American father, John Cazale. Cazale made only five feature films in his career, which fans and critics alike call classics. But before his film debut, in the short The American Way (1962),...
Five: The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, The Deer Hunter
42. Emma Thompson
Actress | Sense and Sensibility
Emma Thompson was born on April 15, 1959 in Paddington, London, into a family of actors - father Eric Thompson and mother Phyllida Law, who has co-starred with Thompson in several films. Her sister, Sophie Thompson, is an actor as well. Her father was English-born and her mother is Scottish-born. ...
Five: Howards End, The Remains of the Day, In the Name of the Father, Sense and Sensibility, An Education.
43. Hugo Weaving
Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Hugo Wallace Weaving was born on April 4, 1960 in Nigeria, to English parents Anne (Lennard), a tour guide and teacher, and Wallace Weaving, a seismologist. Hugo has an older brother, Simon, and a younger sister, Anna, who both also live and work in Australia. During his early childhood, the ...
Five: Babe (voiced an animal character), Lord of the Rings trilogy, Hacksaw Ridge.
44. Kevin Bacon
Actor | Footloose
Kevin Norwood Bacon was born on July 8, 1958 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Ruth Hilda (Holmes), an elementary school teacher, and Edmund Norwood Bacon, a prominent architect who was on the cover of Time Magazine in November 1964.
Kevin's early training as an actor came from The Manning Street. ...
Five: JFK, A Few Good Men, Apollo 13, Mystic River, Frost/Nixon. You can't have a list like this without Kevin Bacon and Christopher Lee appearing in the middle of it. :)
45. Christopher Lee
Actor | Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was perhaps the only actor of his generation to have starred in so many films and cult saga. Although most notable for personifying bloodsucking vampire, Dracula, on screen, he portrayed other varied characters on screen, most of which were villains, whether it ...
Five: Hamlet (as an extra), Moulin Rouge (1952), The Lord of the Rings trilogy (for "Return of the King" - the extended version).
46. Viggo Mortensen
Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Since his screen debut as a young Amish farmer in Peter Weir's Witness (1985), Viggo Mortensen's career has been marked by a steady string of well-rounded performances.
Mortensen was born in New York City, to Grace Gamble (Atkinson) and Viggo Peter Mortensen, Sr. His father was Danish, his mother ...
Five: Witness, Lord of the Rings trilogy, Green Book
47. Christian Bale
Actor | The Dark Knight
Christian Charles Philip Bale was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK on January 30, 1974, to English parents Jennifer "Jenny" (James) and David Bale. His mother was a circus performer and his father, who was born in South Africa, was a commercial pilot. The family lived in different countries ...
Five: The Fighter, American Hustle, The Big Short, Vice, Ford vs Ferrari
48. Bess Flowers
Actress | We Faw Down
Bess Flowers was born on November 23, 1898 in Sherman, Texas, USA. She was an actress, known for We Faw Down (1928), The Shadow (1937) and Sinister Hands (1932). She was married to William S. Holman and Cullen Tate. She died on July 28, 1984 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Five, as an uncredited extra: It Happened One Night, You Can't Take It With You, All About Eve, The Greatest Show on Earth, Around the World in 80 Days. Allegedly in many, many more; hard to verify.
49. Matt Damon
Actor | Good Will Hunting
Matthew Paige Damon was born on October 8, 1970, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Kent Damon, a stockbroker, realtor and tax preparer, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early childhood education professor at Lesley University. Matt has an older brother, Kyle, a sculptor. His father was of English and ...
Five: Good Will Hunting, Saving Private Ryan, True Grit, The Martian, Ford vs Ferrari
50. Sam Rockwell
Actor | Moon
Sam Rockwell was born on November 5, 1968, in San Mateo, California, the only child of two actors, Pete Rockwell and Penny Hess. The family moved to New York when he was two years old, living first in the Bronx and later in Manhattan. When Sam was five years old, his parents separated, at which ...
Five: The Green Mile; Frost/Nixon; Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri; Vice; Jojo Rabbit
51. Saoirse Ronan
Actress | Hanna
Saoirse Una Ronan was born in The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States, to Irish parents, Monica Ronan (née Brennan) and Paul Ronan, an actor. When Saoirse was three, the family moved back to Dublin, Ireland. Saoirse grew up in Dublin and briefly in Co. Carlow before moving back to Dublin ...
Five: Atonement, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Brooklyn, Lady Bird, Little Women
52. Kevin Costner
Actor | The Postman
Kevin Michael Costner was born on January 18, 1955 in Lynwood, California, the third child of Bill Costner, a ditch digger and ultimately an electric line servicer for Southern California Edison, and Sharon Costner (née Tedrick), a welfare worker. His older brother, Dan, was born in 1950. A middle ...
Four: Field of Dreams, Dances With Wolves, JFK, and Hidden Figures. Bonus points for deleted scene in The Big Easy; they only show his hands.
53. Spencer Tracy
Actor | Judgment at Nuremberg
Spencer Tracy was the second son born on April 5, 1900, to truck salesman John Edward and Caroline Brown Tracy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While attending Marquette Academy, he and classmate Pat O'Brien quit school to enlist in the Navy at the start of World War I. Tracy was still at Norfolk Navy Yard...
Four: Test Pilot, Captains Courageous, Judgment at Nuremberg, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
54. Morgan Freeman
Actor | Driving Miss Daisy
With an authoritative voice and calm demeanor, this ever popular American actor has grown into one of the most respected figures in modern US cinema. Morgan was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee, to Mayme Edna (Revere), a teacher, and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber. The young Freeman...
Four: Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption, The Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby.
55. Clark Gable
Actor | It Happened One Night
William Clark Gable was born on February 1, 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio, to Adeline (Hershelman) and William Henry Gable, an oil-well driller. He was of German, Irish, and Swiss-German descent. When he was seven months old, his mother died, and his father sent him to live with his maternal aunt and uncle ...
Four: Mutiny on the Bounty, Test Pilot, It Happened One Night, Gone With the Wind
56. Humphrey Bogart
Actor | Casablanca
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born in New York City, New York, to Maud Humphrey, a famed magazine illustrator and suffragette, and Belmont DeForest Bogart, a moderately wealthy surgeon (who was secretly addicted to opium). Bogart was educated at Trinity School, NYC, and was sent to Phillips Academy ...
Four: The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Casablanca, The Caine Mutiny.
57. Sandra Bullock
Producer | The Proposal
Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mother, Helga Bullock (née Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father, John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of German descent. Sandra grew up on the road ...
Four: Crash, The Blind Side, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Gravity.
58. Sidney Poitier
Actor | In the Heat of the Night
Sidney Poitier was a native of Cat Island, Bahamas, although born, two months prematurely, in Miami during a visit by his parents, Evelyn (Outten) and Reginald James Poitier. He grew up in poverty as the son of farmers, with his father also driving a cab in Nassau. Sidney had little formal ...
Four: The Defiant Ones, Lilies in the Field, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
59. Ben Kingsley
Actor | Sexy Beast
Ben Kingsley was born Krishna Bhanji on December 31, 1943 in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England. His father, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, was a Kenyan-born medical doctor, of Gujarati Indian descent, and his mother, Anna Lyna Mary (Goodman), was an English actress. Ben began to act in stage plays during ...
Four: Gandhi, Bugsy, Schindler's List, Hugo
60. Talia Shire
Actress | Rocky
Talia Rose Shire is an American actress who played roles as Connie Corleone in The Godfather films and Adrian Balboa in the Rocky series. For her work in The Godfather Part II and Rocky, Shire was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress, respectively, and for the ...
Four: The Godfather trilogy, Rocky
61. Peter O'Toole
Actor | Lawrence of Arabia
A leading man of prodigious talents, Peter O'Toole was born and raised in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, the son of Constance Jane Eliot (Ferguson), a Scottish nurse, and Patrick Joseph O'Toole, an Irish metal plater, football player and racecourse bookmaker. Upon leaving school, he decided to become a...
Four: Lawrence of Arabia, Becket, The Lion in Winter, The Last Emperor
62. Jessica Chastain
Actress | Zero Dark Thirty
Jessica Michelle Chastain was born in Sacramento, California, and was raised in a middle-class household in a Northern California suburb. Her mother, Jerri Chastain, is a vegan chef whose family is originally from Kansas, and her stepfather is a fireman. She discovered dance at the age of nine and ...
Four: The Tree of Life, The Help, Zero Dark Thirty, The Martian.
63. Adrien Brody
Actor | The Pianist
Adrien Nicholas Brody was born in Woodhaven, Queens, New York, the only child of retired history professor Elliot Brody and Hungarian-born photographer Sylvia Plachy. He accompanied his mother on assignments for the Village Voice, and credits her with making him feel comfortable in front of the ...
Four: The Thin Red Line, The Pianist, Midnight in Paris, The Grand Budapest Hotel.
64. Robert Redford
Actor | The Natural
Born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Charles Robert Redford, an accountant for Standard Oil, and Martha Redford, Charles Robert Redford, Jr. was a scrappy kid who stole hubcaps in high school and lost his college baseball scholarship at the University of Colorado because of ...
Four: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, All the President's Men, Out of Africa. Bonus: directed (but did not appear) in Ordinary People.
65. Tommy Lee Jones
Actor | The Fugitive
Tommy Lee Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Lucille Marie (Scott), a police officer and beauty shop owner, and Clyde C. Jones, who worked on oil fields. Tommy himself worked in underwater construction and on an oil rig. He attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a prestigious prep school ...
Four: JFK, The Fugitive, No Country for Old Men, Lincoln.
66. Anthony Quinn
Actor | Alexis Zorbas
Anthony Quinn was born Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (some sources indicate Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca) on April 21, 1915, in Chihuahua, Mexico, to Manuela (Oaxaca) and Francisco Quinn, who became an assistant cameraman at a Los Angeles (CA) film studio. His paternal grandfather was Irish, ...
Four: The Ox-Bow Incident, Lawrence of Arabia, The Guns of Navarone, Zorba the Greek
67. Laurence Olivier
Actor | Sleuth
Laurence Olivier could speak William Shakespeare's lines as naturally as if he were "actually thinking them", said English playwright Charles Bennett, who met Olivier in 1927. Laurence Kerr Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, England, to Agnes Louise (Crookenden) and Gerard Kerr Olivier, a High ...
Four: Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, Hamlet, Nicholas and Alexandra
68. Sally Field
Actress | Forrest Gump
Sally Margaret Field was born November 6, 1946 in Pasadena, California, to actress Margaret Field (née Morlan) and salesman Richard Dryden Field. Her parents divorced in 1950 and her mother then married stuntman Jock Mahoney, and they had a daughter, Princess O'Mahoney. She also has a brother, ...
Four: Norma Rae, Places in the Heart, Forrest Gump, Lincoln
69. Shirley MacLaine
Actress | Terms of Endearment
Shirley MacLaine was born Shirley MacLean Beaty in Richmond, Virginia. Her mother, Kathlyn Corinne (MacLean), was a drama teacher from Nova Scotia, Canada, and her father, Ira Owens Beaty, a professor of psychology and real estate agent, was from Virginia. Her brother, Warren Beatty, was born on ...
Four: Around the World in 80 Days, The Apartment, The Turning Point, Terms of Endearment.
70. Warren Beatty
Actor | Reds
Since starring in his first film, Splendor in the Grass (1961), Warren Beatty has been said to have demonstrated a greater longevity in movies than any actor of his generation. Few people have taken so many responsibilities for all phases of the production of films as producer, director, writer, ...
Four: Bonnie and Clyde, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Bugsy.
71. Leslie Caron
Actress | Gigi
French ballet dancer Leslie Caron was discovered by the legendary MGM star Gene Kelly during his search for a co-star in one of the finest musicals ever filmed, the Oscar-winning An American in Paris (1951), which was inspired by and based on the music of George Gershwin. Leslie's gamine looks and ...
Four: An American in Paris, Gigi, Fanny, Chocolat.
72. Richard Attenborough
Actor | Jurassic Park
Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough of Richmond-upon-Thames, was born in Cambridge, England, the son of Mary (née Clegg), a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council, and Frederick Levi Attenborough, a scholar and academic administrator who was a don at Emmanuel College and wrote a ...
Four: In Which We Serve, The Sand Pebbles, Doctor Dolittle, Elizabeth. Bonus: directed "Gandhi".
73. George C. Scott
Actor | Patton
George C. Scott was an immensely talented actor, a star of the big screen, stage and television. He was born on October 18, 1927 in Wise, Virginia, to Helena Agnes (Slemp) and George Dewey Scott. At the age of eight, his mother died, and his father, an executive at Buick, raised him. In 1945, he ...
Four: Anatomy of a Murder, The Hustler, Dr. Strangelove, Patton.
74. Albert Finney
Actor | Murder on the Orient Express
The son of a Lancashire bookmaker, Albert Finney came to motion pictures via the theatre. In 1956, he won a scholarship to RADA where his fellow alumni included Peter O'Toole and Alan Bates. He joined the Birmingham Repertory where he excelled in plays by William Shakespeare. A member of the Royal ...
Four: Tom Jones, The Dresser, Erin Brokovich, Traffic
75. Jeff Bridges
Actor | The Big Lebowski
Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born on December 4, 1949 in Los Angeles, California, the son of well-known film and TV star Lloyd Bridges and his long-time wife Dorothy Dean Bridges (née Simpson). He grew up amid the happening Hollywood scene with big brother Beau Bridges. Both boys popped up, without ...
Four: The Last Picture Show, Seabiscuit, True Grit, Hell or High Water.
76. Lucas Hedges
Actor | Manchester by the Sea
Lucas Hedges is an American actor, known for playing Patrick Chandler in Manchester by the Sea (2016), which earned him an Academy Award nomination.
Hedges was born in Brooklyn Heights, New York, the second child of poet and actress Susan Bruce and Oscar-nominated screenwriter and director Peter ...
Four: Grand Budapest Hotel, Manchester by the Sea, Lady Bird, Three Billboard Outside Ebbing, Missouri
77. John Wayne
Actor | True Grit
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Iowa, to Mary Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist. He was of English, Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and Irish ancestry.
Clyde developed a lung condition that required him to move his family from Iowa to the warmer climate of southern ...
Four: The Quiet Man, The Alamo, The Longest Day, How the West was Won.
78. Vanessa Redgrave
Actress | Coriolanus
On January 30, 1937, renowned theatre actor Michael Redgrave was performing in a production of Hamlet in London. During the curtain call, the show's lead, Laurence Olivier, announced to the audience: "tonight a great actress was born". This was in reference to his co-star's newborn daughter, ...
Four: A Man for All Seasons, Julia, Howards End, Atonement.
79. Amy Adams
Actress | Arrival
Amy Lou Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy, to American parents, Kathryn (Hicken) and Richard Kent Adams, a U.S. serviceman who was stationed at Caserma Ederle in Italy at the time. She was raised in a Mormon family of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado, and has English, as well as ...
Four: The Fighter, American Hustle, Her, Arrival, Vice.
80. Sean Penn
Actor | Mystic River
Sean Penn is a powerhouse film performer capable of intensely moving work, who has gone from strength to strength during a colourful film career, and who has drawn much media attention for his stormy private life and political viewpoints.
Sean Justin Penn was born in Los Angeles, California, the ...
Four: The Thin Red Line, Mystic River, Milk, The Tree of Life.
81. Benedict Cumberbatch
Actor | The Imitation Game
Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch was born and raised in London, England. His parents, Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton (born Timothy Carlton Congdon Cumberbatch), are both actors. He is a grandson of submarine commander Henry Carlton Cumberbatch, and a great-grandson of diplomat Henry Arnold ...
Five: Atonement, War Horse, 12 Years A Slave, The Imitation Game, 1917.
82. Tom Cruise
Actor | Top Gun
In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. ...
Four: Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire
83. Bernard Hill
Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Bernard Hill is an English actor. He is well recognized for playing King Théoden in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Captain Edward Smith in Titanic, and Luther Plunkitt, the Warden of San Quentin Prison in the Clint Eastwood film True Crime. Hill was also known for playing roles in television ...
Four: Gandhi, Titanic, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
84. John Rhys-Davies
Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Welsh actor John Rhys-Davies was born in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, Wales, to Mary Margaretta Phyllis (nee Jones), a nurse, and Rhys Davies, a mechanical engineer and Colonial Officer. He graduated from the University of East Anglia and is probably best known to film audiences for his roles in the...
Four: Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lord of the Rings trilogy
85. Brad Dourif
Actor | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Gaunt character actor Brad Dourif was born Bradford Claude Dourif on March 18, 1950 in Huntington, West Virginia. He is the son of Joan Mavis Felton (Bradford) and Jean Henri Dourif, a French-born art collector who owned and operated a dye factory. His father died when Dourif was three years old, ...
Four: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Mississippi Burning, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (extended edition).
86. Robert Karnes
Actor | Inside Detective
Robert Karnes was born on June 19, 1917 in Watsonville, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Rocky King, Detective (1950), Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948) and Police Story (1973). He was married to Doris Karnes. He died on December 4, 1979 in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Four: The Best Years of Our Lives, Gentleman's Agreement, All the King's Men, From Here to Eternity
87. Cuba Gooding Jr.
Actor | Jerry Maguire
Cuba Gooding Jr. was born on January 2, 1968, in The Bronx, New York. His mother, Shirley (Sullivan), was a backup singer for The Sweethearts. His father, Cuba Gooding, was the lead vocalist for the R&B group The Main Ingredient, which had a hit with the song "Everybody Plays The Fool". His ...
Four: A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire, As Good as it Gets, Selma.
88. Kyle Chandler
Actor | Argo
Kyle M. Chandler is an Emmy-winning American actor who was born in Buffalo, New York in 1965. He resides in the United States with his wife, Kathryn Chandler, and their two children, Sawyer and Sydney. Some of his most notable credits include "Friday Night Lights" (Friday Night Lights (2006)), "...
Four: Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, The Wolf of Wall Street, Manchester by the Sea.
89. Tom Hardy
Actor | Inception
With his breakthrough performance as Eames in Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller Inception (2010), English actor Tom Hardy has been brought to the attention of mainstream audiences worldwide. However, the versatile actor has been steadily working on both stage and screen since his television debut...
Four: Inception, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Dunkirk.
90. Kristin Scott Thomas
Actress | Gosford Park
The acclaimed Cornish actress Dame Kristin Scott Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall, to Deborah (Hurlbatt) and Lieutenant Commander Simon Scott Thomas. Her father was a pilot for the British Royal Navy and died in a flying accident in 1964. Her stepfather, Lt. Cdr Simon Idiens, was also a pilot, ...
Four: Four Weddings and a Funeral, The English Patient, Gosford Park, Darkest Hour
91. Forest Whitaker
Actor | The Last King of Scotland
Forest Steven Whitaker has packaged a king-size talent into his hulking 6' 2", 220 lb. frame. He won an Academy Award for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the film The Last King of Scotland (2006), and has also won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. He is the fourth African-American male to...
Four: Platoon, The Crying Game, Arrival, Black Panther
92. Bradley Cooper
Actor | A Star Is Born
Bradley Charles Cooper was born on January 5, 1975 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Gloria (Campano), is of Italian descent, and worked for a local NBC station. His father, Charles John Cooper, who was of Irish descent, was a stockbroker. Immediately after Bradley graduated from the ...
Four: Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, American Sniper, A Star is Born (2018)
93. Emma Stone
Actress | La La Land
Emily Jean "Emma" Stone was born on November 6, 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona to Krista Jean Stone (née Yeager), a homemaker & Jeffrey Charles "Jeff" Stone, a contracting company founder and CEO. She is of Swedish, German & British Isles descent. Stone began acting as a child as a member of the ...
Four: The Help, Birdman, La La Land, The Favourite
94. Scarlett Johansson
Actress | Lost in Translation
Scarlett Ingrid Johansson was born on November 22, 1984 in Manhattan, New York City, New York. Her mother, Melanie Sloan is from a Jewish family from the Bronx and her father, Karsten Johansson is a Danish-born architect from Copenhagen. She has a sister, Vanessa Johansson, who is also an actress, ...
Four: Lost in Translation, Her, Marriage Story, Jojo Rabbit.
95. Joe Pesci
Actor | Goodfellas
Compact Italian-American actor Joe Pesci was born February 9, 1943 in Newark, New Jersey, to Mary (Mesce), a part-time barber, and Angelo Pesci, a bartender and forklift driver. Pesci first broke into entertainment as a child actor, and by the mid-1950s, was starring on the series "Star Time Kids"....
Four: Raging Bull, Goodfellas, JFK, The Irishman
96. Colin Firth
Actor | A Single Man
Colin Andrew Firth was born into an academic family in Grayshott, Hampshire, England. His mother, Shirley Jean (Rolles), was a comparative religion lecturer at the Open University, and his father, David Norman Lewis Firth, lectured on history at Winchester University College (formerly King Alfred's...
Four: The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, The King's Speech, 1917
97. Bruce Dern
Actor | Nebraska
Two-time Oscar nominee Bruce Dern's tremendous career is made up of playing both modern day heroes and legendary villains. Through decades of lauded performances, Dern has acquired the reputation of being one of the most talented and prolific actors of his generation.
Dern currently appears opposite...
Four: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?; Django Unchained; Nebraska; Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
98. Mahershala Ali
Actor | Leave the World Behind
Mahershala Ali is fast becoming one of the freshest and most in-demand faces in Hollywood with his extraordinarily diverse skill set and wide-ranging background in film, television, and theater.
He can be seen in the independent feature film, Moonlight, as well as reprising his role in The Hunger ...
99. Chris Cooper
Actor | Adaptation.
Christopher Walton Cooper was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to Mary Ann (Walton), a homemaker, and Charles Sherwood Cooper, a cattleman and internist who served as a doctor in the US Air Force. His parents were from Texas, where Cooper was raised.
Educated at the University of Missouri school of ...
Four: American Beauty, Seabiscuit, Capote, Little Women.
100. Giovanni Ribisi
Actor | Boiler Room
Antonino Giovanni Ribisi is an American actor who was born in Los Angeles, California. His parents both have careers in the entertainment industry. His mother, Gay Ribisi (née Landrum), is a talent manager for actors and writers, and his father, Albert Anthony Ribisi, is a musician. He has a twin ...
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